Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

During the interval, everyone around me pretty much had the same reaction; they all turned to the nearest person, beamed like spotlamps and said "Isn't it great!! Yes, yes it was :D Having stretched out some of the kinks and restored circulation to my bum - that chair wasn't terribly comfortable - I settled in for Act Two.

Not only is "Anthem" one of the best songs to end Act One on, but "One Night in Bangkok" has to be one of the best to open Act Two, with it's pulsing beat and oriental scene setting. Adam, I'm happy to say, did one of my favourite songs full justice and just like that, we were off into the plot complexities of the second Act. It's a year later and, having resigned before the final match of the previous World Championship, Freddie has retired from Chess and is now a presenter for Walter's mega TV corp who are covering this year's World Championship in Bangkok. Anatoly is back as defending champion, against a new Russian Challenger.

Florence is back too - she's now with Anatoly and the two reflect on the chances of their relationship succeeding ("You and I"), when there are other complications such as Anatoly's wife flying into Bangkok. I have to say at this point, I was not wowed by the dress Idina wore in the Second Act. It was pretty enough, white with some sort of black squiggly design on it, but I thought it really didn't do her any favours at all. (Another aside, all the costumes were provided by Marks and Spencer...hrm. Actually, that explains a lot :P) Anyway, costume quibbles aside, Josh and Idina yet again managed to win me over into admiring a duet I'm not usually particularly fond of. I can see why they keep working together, and not just because they're on the same label :)

We see Molokov again, now working with the new Russian challenger and gloating over the fact they have someone loyal to the cause. He and the male soloists sing "The Soviet Machine", a song I don't know well but it sounded great and they clearly had fun with it. Molokov's confident that Anatoly will be too distracted to play well, because they've arranged for the visit of his wife.

Meanwhile, Anatoly agrees with Walter to be interviewed by Global Television, only to discover that the interviewer is Freddie. There's a cracking scene between the two as the interview quickly deteriorates ("The Interview"), culminating in Walter/Freddie deviously showing footage of Svetlana, Anatoly's wife, and their two children. Charmingly, they'd actually filmed Kerry Ellis and two blond haired kids that could have totally been hers, so there was actual video footage for us to see. Anatoly refuses to discuss his personal life and finally storms off. Walter congratulates Freddie on an excellent ratings getting interview but Freddie seems disenchanted with the whole thing.

Finally, we got to see Kerry Ellis as Svetlana arrives and sings about what her life could have been like ("Someone Else's Story"). It's a powerful number and I can see why it was one of the few additions done for the American production to have survived subsequent re-writes. It also boosts the role which is a good thing. Kerry was in terrific voice and got a great ovation from the crowd, nearly as big as the one Josh got for Anthem.

Now we get to "The Deal". On the album, this is a terrific song, featuring Molokov, Florence, Freddie and Anatoly, as Molokov attempts to manipulate the match, using Freddie to get to both Anatoly and Florence. On stage, this turns into a morass of dealing and double dealing and usually totally confuses the audience.. What they did for this production, which I thought helped a lot, was they had the Arbiter narrate what was going on before each segment of the song. This did at least clarify who was doing what and (kinda) why. I won't pretend I followed all of it perfectly, but as far as I can recall, the sequence went something like this. Walter and Molokov are in cahoots; the Russians have promised that if Anatoly loses and comes back to Russia, they'll return several people they've been holding for years to the West. Molokov approaches both Svetlana and Florence, wanting them to influence Anatoly into losing. For Svetlana, he promises her life in Russia will be what she wants it to be..or very much worse. For Florence, who lost her family in the Hungarian uprising in 1956, he implies her father is alive and if Anatoly loses, will be one of those returned to the West. Being rejected by both woman, he gets Walter to work on Freddie, who in turn, tries to cut a deal with Anatoly and Florence. Again, both reject it and send Freddie packing, their scorn ringing in his ears.

The rejection is too much for Freddie and he breaks down into a bitter lament about his life and what he's become ("Pity the Child"). Adam nailed this song so well, I'm running out of adjectives to describe it. It's a bitter, emotional song and he did it perfectly; I got goosebumps. Quite rightly, he got oodles of applause for this, although I felt it deserved even more. Following right from this powerhouse number, we got the biggest duet of them all, Florence and Svetlana reflecting on the man they both love in "I Know Him So Well". Idina and Kerry, on stage together for the very first time, singing this song? Oh yes please! And as wonderful as it was, I have to confess to a smidge of disappointment. I don't know if I'd hyped it up too much in my head, to the point where nothing would have seemed as good, but I really don't feel they did that song justice. It was still good, don't get me wrong, it's Idina and Kerry, of course it was bloody good! But it should have blown off the roof of the hall and it didn't. It may well have fallen victim to neither woman wanting to shout down the other, they both have very powerful voices and I know that can be hard to balance. But still, I do wish they'd gone for it just a little more.

(There's a YouTube vid here, listen for yourselves. Sound ain't great but you get the gist. Then come back and tell me if I need to get my ears syringed out or something :D Oh! And that's the sort of view I had too, I suspect this was taken from the first tier, below and a little to the right of where I was sitting.)

Another plot twist comes into play at this point, as Freddie meets up with Anatoly and, despite the other man's justifiable suspicions for his motives, convinces him that he just wants to talk chess ("Talking Chess"). Freddie's spotted a weakness in the challenger's game that Anatoly can exploit. When asked why he's doing this, he says because no-one else is interested in the chess and that's what it should be about at the end of the day. I found this version to be way more convincing than the version done for the London production but whether that was because of lyric tweaks or because Adam was more convincing with it than Murray Head, I can't say for sure :)

The encounter seems to resolve Anatoly's own dilemma's and he returns to the chess championship determined to carve his own path ("Endgame") it's five games all, each only needs one more game to be crowned world champ. Anatoly moves confidently and comments that he's found his "only obligation". He's confronted by both Florence and Svetlana, both bitter at his selfishness but he holds out and wins the final match. This was another well constructed and superbly sung scene, with all three main leads giving everything and belting out the lyrics for all they were worth.

Now crowned World Champ, Anatoly makes the decision to return to Russia on his own terms. He and Florence acknowledge their relationship is over but their love isn't. ("You and I, reprise"). They hug and depart, and Walter sidles up to Florence to talk about her father. I confess I completely missed what I think is a key plot twist here, dammit; I thiiink it turns out that Walter wasn't sure if Florence's father is alive and that they will have to wait and see to find out for sure. I'm hoping someone on one of the boards will clarify this for me later so I'll come back and edit accordingly :) Bitter, disappointed, heartbroken, Florence sings a reprise of Anthem, joined by the entire cast as they reflect that the lesson learned is "My land's only borders lie around my heart." Idina blew the roof off here, I got chills and stuff, and the whole cast brought the show to an amazing climax.

Whew! We clapped and cheered and hollered and clapped some more. The entire hall was on its feet and we made 'em take two curtain calls. I've heard that Idina and Adam would have done a third but realised that no-one else was coming back on stage with them so had to scamper off. :)

What a show! It was totally amazing, just blew me totally away. I am so glad this was being filmed professionally, because I will definitely want to re-watch it and re-live it again and again. One of those experiences you have one in a lifetime and cherish forever. *sighs happily*

I wasn't going to stage door, originally, but dammit, I'm such a fan girly, I gave in to temptation. I hung around for an hour, not to see Idina so much, but because I wanted Adam's autograph in particular. He rarely comes to the UK so it was a big opportunity. Sadly, I never saw him or Idina (she came out very late, I'm told, well after midnight), but I DID see Kerry and I got her autograph on my Chess programme *beams* So the very sore feet were totally worth it :D Actually, the scrum outside the stage door was worryingly large, to the point that they sent Josh out via another door, to yank away some of the crowd. There were no barriers, no crowd control, nothing, just a seething mass of people. *shakes head* I'll be interested to hear if that's changed for tonight. Anyway, clearly they didn't risk letting Idina out until the crowd had thinned, and I hear they got the car right up to the door so that she wasn't totally mobbed. Me, I'm getting to meet her next week *gloat gloat* so while it would have been fun to see her last night, it would also have been greedy :)

Tired, happy, foot sore (damn boots, I gotta get a new pair!), I treated myself to a taxi back to King's Cross, where I caught the 12.36 train home. I'm SO GLAD I drove down to WGC and left the car near the town centre, because when I got back, there were NO cabs at all anywhere. I could have called one but sheesh, it was quicker to walk back to the car :) Home again, I bounced around, had a snack and then logged in so I could share the squee with other Idina fans on the boards, and in a live chat. Ahhh, blissful!

I got to sleep at 4am *thuds* Took that long for the adrenaline to wear off and as I said in the previous post, I'm still high as a kite. However, I have today off work (THANK GOD!) and my shiny, shiny new copy of the new Alan Gordon Jester novel arrived today, so there is going to be snoozing, reading, loafing and much happy squeaking in my near future.

*sighs happily* Oh I AM a happy Mitchy!